Author Archives: Danielle

About Danielle

Participating in an active and healthy lifestyle is a top priority for Danielle Lagow, and she puts those ideals into action every day. She is a senior at Wichita State University, and splits her free time between gigs at DietsInReview, a local health club, and training as a bodybuilder.

Walk This Weigh: Jessica Smith’s vs. Leslie Sansone’s Walking Fitness DVDs

When the word exercise is mentioned, a lot of people tend to begin thinking about long and hard hours spent at the gym. What we need to remind ourselves is that exercise doesn’t have to be dreadful and there are hundreds of ways to get a few minutes in each day. Ever thought about just simply walking for exercise? The benefits for walking are extensive, ranging from improving blood pressure and sugar to easing anxiety and arthritis pain. As today is National Walking Day, there’s never been a better time to put one foot in front of the other.

The list goes on and go, but for some reason we still find excuses to not go out for a walk. One of those excuses might be the poor weather. So what can we do about it? Check out an at-home walking DVD. Fitness experts like Leslie Sansone and Jessica Smith have given you excellent options in their new DVDs.

Walking DVDs give you no excuse for missing a 20-minute walk. With these programs, all you need is a little floor space and a few minutes before getting ready for work in the mornings. Not only will getting a quick and simple walk in at the beginning of your day rev up your metabolism, but it’ll also give you more energy to take on your crazy schedule. Think about it, has there ever been a time where you actually regretted a workout? And the bonus with these DVDs is the little time required to make it happen! (more…)

Posted on April 3, 2024 by Danielle

Saturday Morning Drills: 30-Minute Stairs Total Body Workout

One of the biggest excuses for not working out is the lack of time. By the time you get your gym bag together, drive to the gym, park, walk inside, say hi to your friends, do your workout, and head home again, you’ve taken up a good hour or two of your day. Because I know how valuable each individual’s time is, I developed this quick and easy access workout that can take only 10-30 minutes of your time. You’ll be getting your sweat on for that entire duration, not spending half of it driving.

All you need today is a staircase. It doesn’t matter how many steps it has because you can make do with whatever you’ve got – in your house, front porch, or stadium. Combining these exercises will give you a total body workout. The key to reaching success is to go as long as you can without any breaks (think Crossfit). My suggestion is to do one set of each exercise until you’ve completed all seven and call that round one. Try to do 3-5 rounds all together for the total workout, and only take breaks in between each round. Each exercise should be done for 10-15 reps. Once you feel like you’ve got it all figured out, start timing yourself and try to beat your time as each round progresses. Good luck!

Stair Laps: This one’s pretty self explanatory. We’re going to start with a few stair laps as our warm up to get that heart rate up, the legs stretched out and the blood pumping. For a stair case that is about 20 steps long, do 5 laps (down and back is one). Start off with an easy pace, and then pick it up after each lap. (more…)

Posted on March 16, 2024 by Danielle

Bachelor Sean Lowe’s Abs Recipe: HIIT Training and Small Meals

Whether you’re female, male, a fan, or not a fan of the Bachelor’s Sean Lowe, it may have crossed your mind a time or two how this hottie got that amazing body of his. From what we’ve dug up, it looks like he’s putting in a lot of effort in the gym and the kitchen.

Sean has been working with his personal trainer, Sagi Kalev, since before he was cast on The Bachelorette for Emily Maynard’s season. Kalev put Lowe on his three-part body beast regimen that consists of high intensity interval training, fast and heavy weight lifting, and some serious focus on proper nutrition.

When Sean’s not spending all of his time filming on the show, he’s putting a lot of focus into eating a year-round healthy diet. His nutrition is based on eating 5-6 portioned meals a day with lean proteins, low glycemic carbohydrates, and essential fats (with some pizza and whoopie pies thrown in every once in awhile). (more…)

Posted on March 15, 2024 by Danielle

“Change Our Eating Habits or Die” is Jonathan Bailor’s Message in Launching SlimIsSimple.org

Jonathan Bailor, author of The Smarter Science of Slim, has recently launched a non-profit organization called SlimIsSimple.org. This group was created with the help of anonymous investors who are passionate about the damage that’s being done to our country (when it comes to proper nutrition and health) and who realize it’s all preventable with proper diet and exercise. This large group of gentlemen helped fund the development of the video above which explains how simple it is to understand what a healthy diet should consist of. (more…)

Posted on March 8, 2024 by Danielle

Saturday Morning Drills: Shape and Tone Your Legs with Ankle Weights

 March is here which means one thing – spring will soon arrive and bikini season will be next. You’ve been working hard on that New Year’s resolution by cleaning up your diet and keeping a consistent workout regimen. But what else can you do to make sure those legs are bikini ready? If you’re looking for more ways to shape and tone your legs, than you’ve stumbled across the right read.

For this week’s Saturday Morning Drill, all you need is a pair of ankle weights. Ankle weights can range from two pounds each all the way up to 10. If you’ve never used them before, I recommend starting out on the lower end of that scale. Incorporating these simple devices into your workouts can be more difficult than they come across. (more…)

Posted on March 2, 2024 by Danielle

Could Cold Temperatures Help You Lose Weight?

Ray Cronise, a former NASA scientist who spent 15 years overseeing experiments aboard shuttles at Marshall Space Flight Center, has been conducting experiments since 2024 to see if cold temperatures have an effect on the metabolism.

In 2024 while watching a televised program on Olympic swimmer, Michael Phelps, Cronise got an idea. The documentary claimed that the swimmer was consuming around 12,000 calories a day while training. That fact didn’t make sense to Cronise considering his own calorie-restricted diet allowed him to have only 12,000 calories per week.

At the time Cronise weighed 209 pounds at 5 feet 9 inches tall, and was trying to get down to 180 pounds. He thought to himself, if Phelps was really consuming that many calories daily and was in the water three hours a day, then something didn’t add up because the swimmer would become a “blob.” (more…)

Posted on February 23, 2024 by Danielle

Your Red Snapper May Actually be a Mercury-Filled Tilefish

The nonprofit ocean protection group called Oceana has been performing a study, the results of which were released last week. The question – whether or not we’re being sold, and therefore eating, the fish we think we are.

Oceana took a sum of around 1,215 fish from 12 different parts of the country and examined them to see if they matched their labels or not. Listed below are the study’s findings.

  • About one-third of the 1,215 fish samples bought from 2024-2024 were mislabeled.
  • In a collection of 120 samples that were marked as red snapper fish, 28 different species of fish were discovered. Of those, 17 were not even within the snapper fish family.
  • Southern California was the region most likely to be misinformed with 52 percent of the samples bought there actually being something different. (more…)
Posted on February 21, 2024 by Danielle

Dirty Details of What Soda’s Doing to Your Body and Checkbook

In this infographic, developed by Term Life Insurance, you’ll see a few of the many health issues that soda plays a large role in. Heart disease, obesity, osteoporosis, reproductive issues…the list goes on and on. I’m sure you’ve heard these warnings before, but have you really thought about what that can of Coke is doing to your insides? By consuming soda on a regular basis you’re basically asking to be miserable and sick. (more…)

Posted on February 14, 2024 by Danielle

Saturday Morning Drills: Primal Animal Workout

After watching Kira Stoke’s video on primal animal movements for strength training, I couldn’t resist trying it for myself in this week’s Saturday Drill. This workout can be done anywhere at any time. And though you won’t be using any equipment, your own body weight in these positions will likely leave you more worked up and sweaty than a standard workout at the gym.

Though this workout can be physically demanding if done properly, it could also be a fun one to try with the kids. The key to success in these movements is to literally think and act like an animal would. If you feel silly, you’re probably doing it right.

Some of the animals we’ll be mimicking are gorillas, panthers, ducks, lizards and even seals. By using nothing but your own body weight, you’ll be working on core and upper body strength. Some of the benefits these movements include increased endurance, flexibility, power, posture and balance.

Try this workout at home in a long hallway or in a big open space. You want to be able to walk, waddle, crawl and hop from one end of the room to the other without obstruction. The amount of times you perform each exercise should be based on your current endurance and strength levels. For beginners, I recommend doing each movement 1-2 times. Going from one end of the room and back would count as one set. For those more advanced, try performing each movement at least three times. All but one movement require moving forward or backward.

View Primal Animal Workout Slideshow
Also Read:

Kira Stoke Primal Animal Workouts Propel Your Fitness to Beast Mode

A Time-Saving Kettlebell Workout with Gin Miller

11 Celebrities Who Crossfit to Stay in Shape

Posted on February 9, 2024 by Danielle

The Fat Shaming of Chris Christie, aka The Healthiest Fat Guy You’ve Ever Seen

New Jersey governor Chris Christie pulled a donut out of his back pocket and started eating it during a CBS Late Show appearance, and told David Letterman, “I’m basically the healthiest fat guy you’ve ever seen in your life.” As he tossed back roughly 260 calories and 12 grams of fat, he made jokes about a doctor who recently called him out for his weight.

Connie Mariano, a retired Navy rear admiral and former White House doctor, expressed herself as a Christie fan and is all for him running for a higher office but thinks he’s in desperate need of losing weight. “I’m a physician more than I’m a Democrat or Republican. And I’m worried about this man dying in office,” she said during an interview with CNN. (more…)

Posted on February 7, 2024 by Danielle

A Beginner’s Guide to HIIT Training

If you didn’t already know, HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. The simplest way to explain HIIT is that it’s an organized cardiovascular training method. It’s comprised of high intensity exercise intervals of short durations mixed with low intensity intervals for recovery. It requires high effort (on an intensity scale of 1-10, at least a 7) of sprints lasting from thirty seconds to two minutes, followed with a different low intensity exercise lasting 1-2 minutes. The low intensity part of the workout is designed to be a break in order for your body to recover from the sprints and prepare itself to begin sprinting again.

What are the benefits of HIIT?

Why would someone choose HIIT over a standard, lengthier cardio session? The difference between the two is the amount of calories burned after the workout is complete. After finishing a long distance jog, your body stops burning calories as soon as you stop jogging. After HIIT training, you’re body continues to burn calories even after you’re done sprinting. That means you can spend less time on your cardio workout and still burn at least the same amount of calories, if not more. More benefits include: (more…)

Posted on February 4, 2024 by Danielle